What was a playgroup and do they still exist?

[NameChange9490]

I know that when I was 2 I went to playgroup 3 mornings a week, for the year before I went to nursery school. As a mum now I’ve never heard of a playgroup. Does anyone know what they were and why they don’t appear to exist any more?

When my children were young in the 90s a playgroup was what is now called preschool. They went two or three mornings a week from age 3 until they went to school. They usually took place in church halls or village halls and have mostly been replaced by pre schools or nurseries.
Now where i live playgroups are what we used to call toddler groups. Toddlers attend with their parents/ carers.

Playgroups do exist, this is a random one from Google , whatever anyone else is saying they are definitely still a thing

https://longfordplaygroup.co.uk/

I am playleader at one in Scotland.

Two hours, three mornings a week.

Parents do not stay.

Charity registered and fundraising and parents pay small fee.

We take age two only. Then they move to nursery.

Only one left in our locality I'm aware of.

But that is not a playgroup as described in the OP... it is a fully registered childcare provider that follows the EYFS and has qualified staff.

Childcare settings can't state that they don't take children who aren't potty trained.. they can suggest it and say they prefer it, but it would be discriminatory to say it is a rule.
(Many additional needs and medical needs involving toileting, wouldn't be identified by age 2.5)

All I can tell you is that they do state it as a rule.

Oh I remember these! No, I've not seen one of these kinds for years. I went to one when I was a toddler.

I went in the 80s. I remember it, but I just asked my Mum. It was Tues/Thu in the community centre, 9-12 and cost 50p! It was just playing but also had art stuff, an indoor sandpit (one of those clamshell ones that looked like a turtle!) and story/singing circles.

She definitely left and came back. Apparently it was when she’d do the big shop/housework.

I always found Peppa Pig confusing for this reason. Mummy Pig apparently has a job (of sorts), and Peppa and George seem to spend VERY limited amounts of time in "playgroup." The same class, even though George seems to be preverbal and Peppa talks like a nine-year-old. Maybe they're an unschooling family?

Anyway, as discussed in the thread, there are regional differences in how the word is used. People seem to say "toddler group" in a lot of areas now, even when describing what used to be called a "playgroup." I've also heard "playgroup" being used to describe actual childcare in some regions.

Traditional playgroups are rarer for all the reasons described previously, but informal playgroups are common among bilingual families. We have a lot of English speaking playgroups here in Tokyo, and the purpose is partly to ensure the kids have plenty of opportunity to hang out in English. In the UK, no doubt there are Spanish, French, Chinese etc. playgroups for similar purposes.

I don't know what the law is in the UK, but I can see why groups would try to insist on this as a general rule, even if they are prepared to make occasional exceptions. The inability to draw any lines in the sand re toilet training, combined with a general tendency towards child-led everything and extreme conflict avoidance among a lot of parents, is resulting in toilet training becoming later and later; making the exception for the occasional child is one thing, but if you end up with a class full of 3yos who are all in nappies, it really changes the nature of the class and what realistically can be done with the kids, the required ratios etc.

The parenting groups I am on are obsessed with "readiness" and with the idea that almost any level of accidents means the kid isn't "ready" - apparently you are basically not supposed to start until your kid is pretty much telling you they want to be potty trained, and then it's supposed to be this near-instantanious accident-free process. Anything else, straight back to nappies.

A firm push in the direction of "Look, you need to toilet train your kids" would help, frankly, because parents are taking the piss with the current situation.

If they get early year funding ten they have to take children who are not toilet trained of course they would prefer children to be toilet trained but it would be ilegal for them to refuse to take children on this basis
My disabled son was in nappies in a mainstream scool.nursery and despite what you read in the papers he was the only one the vast majority of children will be out of nappies by that age there might be the odd child who.absent quite grasped it but generally children who.are very delayed in their toiliting ,will.has something else going on either diagnosed or undiagnosed.

My children went to playgroup 20 years ago. It was a church hall, with around 20 children aged from 2.5 up to school age and lots of mature lady helpers. The helpers were paid, and it wasn't allied to the church as such, but I don't think it was really a profit-making thing either; they just wanted to cover costs and salaries. I think it was around £10 per session, but mostly covered by free childcare for over 3s.

They played a lot, did a little bit of more structured education, did painting and crafts, sometimes cooking eg sandwiches, cake decorating, listened to stories, sang songs and learned independence skills such as going to the loo and putting their own coats on.

It was just two and a half hours, mornings only and you had to be out for nappies before you could join. Parents didn't stay.
Children of working parents were often dropped off and picked up by their childminders. My children went three mornings a week but some did all five.

(There were also mum and baby groups, or toddlers groups, which were open from birth to school age, they were only £1 or two, but run by volunteers, and parents stayed with their children and drank tea while the children played. Usually there would be a sing-song at the end.)

I think the way the role of women has changed has a lot to do with it. The women who used these groups it was for a bit of a break, to get some shopping or housework done that kind of thing not for 'formal' childcare, so it was more for house wives than working mothers. The women who ran them were usually older women who had already raised their own kids, so the ones who had been house wives. Some of them were older women who were officially retired but wanted to keep busy. Those same women aren't allowed to retire now! They were usually run in church halls and such, which a lot of churches don't exist anymore or don't have the same kind of facilities. And insurance often makes these kinds of ventures prohibitively expensive, especially when it comes to DBS checks and safeguarding training and all the things people have to do now to work in any capacity with kids. Not that I'm saying we shouldn't have those things, just that it makes it too expensive. Private nurseries have been growing exponentially as well, so they've filled a lot of the gap. But sure start centres also did a lot of those things, when our local one shut around covid time they were still running a playgroup there which also doubled as a crèche for the domestic violence and parenting courses they ran there. Now those same kids will be at home (sometimes in bad situations) or at private nurseries or at school nurseries where they have expanded to take more 2 year olds now.

Several playgroups when mine were that age (2-5 years ago). But I never went to them. They are aimed more at SAHP who want socialisation for themselves and their dc (it was a 'stay and play' set up, where parents were expected to stay and chat with a cuppa). Mine were in nursery and I worked and on my day or two off in the week, I wanted to get out and do things. So we never did classes or groups as didn't want to be tied down, and especially to be stuck inside.

My mum trained as a montessori teacher in the 70s and then ran a playgroup from our house for a few years when I was v young.

There was also a 'preschool' that operated in a similar way as others have described here in our old village. Run by parent volunteers. You'd drop your child off and collect them a few hours later. It got shut down because they kept no records of what children were in attendance went out for a day trip, locking a 2 year old in the hall alone all day. Made the papers, quite a lot of drama as you'd imagine in the village as a result. Playgroup was no more after that.

My child currently attends a play group. I think the children need to be 2 years and 10 months to start. It’s 3 hours a day.

Children can stay on for a second year on a ‘funded’ basis. The pre funded year is a minimal expense, the funded year is free.

(children can also just attend for either of the years)

I see what you mean. I think just having random volunteers isn't a thing round here now, but they grew into private preschools. It was 3 hours a day when mine were little and funding was limited to 15 hours, but most increased to offering all day when the funded hours increased. In essence they offered a similar idea - cheap childcare but limited to 3-4 hours a day term time only, so no good for most working mums. It's just that they are now funded from government and parents topping up, and employ qualified staff, rather than running for peanuts and staffed by volunteers. I think the market's changed now with the extra funding so many are running a model a bit closer to full on private nursery or school preschool but several round here still offer half days, mainly covered by funded hours once they are old enough, if you want.

The free hours have been in place for so many years now. My eldest had 15 hours, and she is 17 now. I think what you're describing belongs to a previous age. There's no need now to leave children with untrained, unqualified, unpaid volunteers. It wasn't better when that was the only way people could afford to get childcare, no matter how good those volunteers or parent helpers were. Whether it's called preschool, kindergarten, play school is just a detail.